1. A method for a cellular mobile communications system, comprising the steps of:
selecting an active set of base stations from a plurality of base stations, wherein each base station in said active set is capable of providing parallel radio links with a mobile station;
transmitting a packet from the mobile station on a radio uplink;
transmitting, from each of the base stations of the active set to the mobile station, a measure of the quality of the radio uplink made during receipt of said packet;
selecting, by said mobile station, only one base station from the active set of base stations based upon said quality measures;
transmitting information identifying the selected base station from the mobile station; and,
forwarding the previously-received packet on a fixed link only from the selected base station.
2. The method according to claim 1, wherein all the active set base stations provide parallel radio downlinks to the mobile station.
3. The method of claim 1, wherein the measure of the radio uplink quality is an acknowledgement sent in response from one or more of the active set radio base stations upon said packet being received.
4. The method of claims 1, wherein the measure of the radio uplink quality is a transmitted power command.
5. The method of claim 1, wherein the measure of the radio link quality is a signal to interference ratio.
6. The method of claim 1, wherein the selecting step is made before transmission of said packet and the link quality predicting step is based on the measure received by the mobile station with respect to one or more packets transmitted previously to said packet.
7. The method according to claim 1, wherein said packet is segmented into two or more segments for transmission in subsequent radio frames and the selected base station reassembles the segments into said packet.
8. The method of claim 3, wherein one or more base stations that have positively acknowledged all previously transmitted segments of said packet are the only ones designated for reception of subsequent segments of said packet.
9. A mobile station for use in a cellular communications system, comprising:
means for transmitting a packet to be received by two or more base stations;
means for receiving a measure of radio link quality experienced by said two or more base stations during the data packet transmission;
a posteriori selecting means for selecting, based upon said measures, only one of said base stations after said packet has been transmitted from the mobile station; or, alternatively, a priori selecting means comprising means for predicting the radio link quality and adapted for selecting only one of said base stations based on prediction of said radio link qualities before said packet is transmitted; and,
means for transmitting uplink information identifying said one of the active set base stations that is selected for the packet to be forwarded on a fixed link by the selected base station.
10. The mobile station of claim 9, further comprising means for receiving packets transmitted from two or more radio base stations in parallel and combining the packets.
11. The mobile station of claim 10, wherein said combining is maximum ratio combining.
12. The mobile station of claim 9, wherein said measure of radio link quality is one or more acknowledgements on the receipt of the transmitted packets.
13. The mobile station of claim 9, wherein said measure of radio link quality is a transmit power command received from said base stations.
14. The mobile station of claim 9, wherein said measure of radio link quality is a signal to interference ratio.
15. The mobile station of claim 9, further comprising means for segmenting the packet into segments fitting into radio blocks.
16. The mobile station of claim 15, as dependent on the a posteriori selection, wherein the mobile station power control is controlled by power commands received only from one or more of said base stations that have reported positive acknowledgements with respect to the transmitted segments of the relevant packet.
17. The mobile station of claim 9, adapted for transmitting the information on the priori selected base station with the relevant packet.
18. The mobile station of claim 9, wherein said prediction means uses a measure of radio link quality received in response to one or more previously transmitted packets.
19. The mobile station of claim 9, operative to adjust its output power to the commands received from the a priori selected base station only.
20. A base station having means to receive a packet from a mobile station and means to send an acknowledgement to the mobile station in response to the received packet, said base station comprising:
means for detecting information from the mobile station that identifies a specific base station selected by said mobile station for forwarding said received packet; and,
means for selectively forwarding the received packet further in a connected radio network only when said detecting means detects that the base station is identified as being selected by said mobile station.
21. The base station of claim 20, adapted for receiving said information subsequent to the packet being received by the MS.
22. The base station of claim 20, adapted for receiving said information with said packet.
23. The base station of claim 20, wherein the detection means are adapted for receiving the selection information on a packet-by-packet basis.
24. The base station of claim 20, further comprising means for timing downlink transmission of radio frames by use of a synchronisation signal received via an interface to a fixed part of the network for parallel transmission of radio frames from all base stations of an active set.
The claims below are in addition to those above.
All refrences to claim(s) which appear below refer to the numbering after this setence.
1. A method implemented by a base station in a wireless communication network for supporting small data transmissions by a wireless device, said method comprising:
associating a preconfigured device identifier for the wireless device with a tunnel between the base station and a serving gateway;
receiving, at the base station, a medium access control packet from the wireless device over a wireless communication channel via a lightweight communication protocol, said medium access control packet including application data transmitted by the wireless device for delivery to a destination device, said lightweight communication protocol comprising a protocol stack consisting essentially of an application layer, a media access control layer, and a physical layer;
mapping the preconfigured device identifier of the wireless device to the associated tunnel; and
forwarding a data packet containing said application data to said serving gateway through the associated tunnel.
2. The method of claim 1 wherein forwarding said application data to said serving gateway comprises:
adding, based on the preconfigured device identifier, a predetermined header including a destination network address to said application data to create the data packet; and
forwarding the data packet to the serving gateway through the associated tunnel.
3. The method of claim 1 wherein mapping the device identifier to the associated tunnel comprises:
storing the preconfigured device identifier in a mapping table that associates one or more device identifiers for different wireless devices with corresponding tunnels between the base station and the serving gateway; and
using the preconfigured device identifier to look up the associated tunnel in the mapping table.
4. The method of claim 1 wherein the data packet comprises an Internet Protocol packet and wherein the network address comprises an Internet Protocol address.
5. The method of claim 1 wherein the medium access control packet includes the preconfigured device identifier of the wireless device.
6. The method of claim 1 further comprising:
sending a periodic scheduling grant to said wireless device, said periodic scheduling grant including the preconfigured device identifier;
wherein said medium access control packet is received responsive to one of said periodic scheduling grants.
7. The method of claim 6 wherein the preconfigured device identifier in the periodic scheduling grant is used to map the received medium access control packet to the associated tunnel.
8. The method of claim 1 further comprising:
receiving a random access request from the wireless device; and
sending a random access response to the wireless device responsive to said random access request, said random access response including an uplink grant for the small data transmission;
wherein the medium access control packet is received from the wireless device responsive to said uplink grant.
9. A base station in a wireless communication network for supporting small data transmissions by a wireless device, the base station comprising:
a transceiver circuit configured to transmit and receive signals over a wireless communication channel; and
a processing circuit coupled to said transceiver circuit and configured to:
associate a preconfigured device identifier for the wireless device with a tunnel between the base station and a serving gateway;
receive a medium access control packet from the wireless device over a wireless communication channel via a lightweight communication protocol, said medium access control packet including application data transmitted by the wireless device for delivery to a destination device, said lightweight communication protocol comprising an application layer but not including a radio link control layer;
map the preconfigured device identifier of the wireless device to the associated tunnel; and
forward a data packet containing said application data to said serving gateway through tunnel.
10. The base station of claim 9 wherein the processing circuit is configured to forward said application data to said serving gateway by:
adding, based on the preconfigured device identifier, a predetermined header including a destination network address to said application data to create the data packet; and
forwarding the data packet to the serving gateway through the tunnel.
11. The base station of claim 9 wherein the processing circuit is configured to map the preconfigured device identifier to the associated tunnel by:
storing the preconfigured device identifier in a mapping table that associates one or more preconfigured device identifiers for different wireless devices with corresponding tunnels between the base station and the serving gateway; and
using the preconfigured device identifier to look up the associated tunnel in the mapping table.
12. The base station of claim 9 wherein the data packet comprises an Internet Protocol packet including a network address comprising an Internet Protocol address.
13. The base station of claim 9 wherein the medium access control packet includes the preconfigured device identifier.
14. The base station of claim 9 wherein the processing circuit is further configured to:
send a periodic scheduling grant to the wireless device, said periodic scheduling grant including the preconfigured device identifier;
wherein said medium access control packet is received responsive to one of said periodic scheduling grants.
15. The method of claim 14 wherein the preconfigured device identifier in the periodic scheduling grant is used to map the received medium access control packet to the associated tunnel.
16. The base station of claim 9 wherein the processing circuit is further configured to:
receive a random access request from the wireless device; and
send a random access response to the wireless device responsive to said random access request, said random access response including an uplink grant for the small data transmission;
wherein the medium access control packet is received from the wireless device responsive to said uplink grant.
17. A method of asynchronous small data transmission implemented by a wireless device in a wireless communication network, said method comprising:
sending application data to a destination device by:
generating a medium access control packet comprising a preconfigured device identifier and the application data, wherein the preconfigured device identifier is reserved for asynchronous small data transmissions to the destination device; and
transmitting the medium access control packet over a wireless communication channel to a serving base station via a lightweight communication protocol, said lightweight communication protocol comprising a protocol stack consisting essentially of an application layer, a media access control layer, and a physical layer;
wherein the preconfigured device identifier is associated with a tunnel between the serving base station and a serving gateway, the associated tunnel configured to forward the application data to the destination device.
18. The method of claim 17 further comprising:
sending a random access request message to said serving base station over a random access channel; and
receiving, responsive to said random access request message, a random access response message including an uplink grant assigning resources for the asynchronous small data transmission;
wherein the medium access control packet is transmitted over said assigned resources.
19. The method of claim 17 further comprising:
receiving a periodic scheduling grant to said wireless device, said periodic scheduling grant including the preconfigured device identifier;
wherein said medium access control packet is transmitted responsive to one of said periodic scheduling grants.
20. The method of claim 17 wherein the preconfigured device identifier comprises an Asynchronous Radio Network Temporary Identifier (A-RNTI).
21. A wireless device configured for asynchronous small data transmissions with a destination device, said wireless device comprising:
a transceiver circuit configured to transmit and receive signals over a wireless communication channel; and
a processing circuit coupled to said transceiver circuit and configured to:
generate a medium access control packet comprising a preconfigured device identifier and application data, wherein the preconfigured device identifier is reserved for asynchronous small data transmissions with the destination device; and
transmit the medium access control packet over the wireless communication channel to a serving base station via a lightweight communication protocol, said lightweight communication protocol comprising a protocol stack consisting essentially of an application layer, a media access control layer, and a physical layer;
wherein the preconfigured device identifier is associated with a tunnel between the serving base station and a serving gateway, the associated tunnel configured to forward the application data to the destination device.
22. The wireless device of claim 21 wherein the processing circuit is further configured to:
send a random access request message to said serving base station over a random access channel; and
receive, responsive to said random access request message, a random access response message including an uplink grant assigning resources for the asynchronous small data transmission;
wherein the medium access control packet is transmitted over said assigned resources.
23. The wireless device of claim 21 wherein the processing circuit is further configured to:
receive a periodic scheduling grant from the serving base station, said periodic scheduling grant including the preconfigured device identifier;
wherein said medium access control packet is transmitted responsive to one of said periodic scheduling grants.
24. The wireless device of claim 21 wherein the preconfigured device identifier comprises an Asynchronous Radio Network Temporary Identifier (A-RNTI).